15/20 Meters packed with CW signals

[Elf36]

I had planned to make a few CW contacts on 15/20 meters, but there is a contest going on apparently. Not that it's a bad thing for contacts, but the frequencies are really jammed right now. I'm getting a bit rusty lately since I've been playing around on  PSK31 more often. Need to remember to have at least 1 or 2 CW contacts per day when I can, to keep up with practice.

[RobRich]

Considerable 10m CW activity right now, too.

https://www.hfunderground.com/board/index.php/topic,93319.0.html

[Elf36]

Yes. I just walked back in my radio room and was scanning the CW portion of 10M. Currently listening to a Costa Rican station on 28.044

[MDK2]

There's a CW contest this weekend. https://www.contestcalendar.com/weeklycont.php#12586

[Elf36]

Finally had a few mins to get on 20M CW. Sent out a CQ and got a quick response from F6GCP on 14.047. 4509.2 mi from my QTH. Gonna try to make at least one more contact. Maybe 40M. I gotta get a 30M antenna up. I really miss that band.

Update as of 23:39. Made one more CQ and worked KM3A in California (14.042). Not a bad afternoon for operating casual with my small set-up!

[zackers]

I had planned to make a few CW contacts on 15/20 meters, but there is a contest going on apparently. Not that it's a bad thing for contacts, but the frequencies are really jammed right now. I'm getting a bit rusty lately since I've been playing around on  PSK31 more often. Need to remember to have at least 1 or 2 CW contacts per day when I can, to keep up with practice.

That was the ARRL CW International DX Contest. One of the biggest contests of the year and one of my favorites. A great way to boost your country count for DXCC.

[Josh]

Remember the WARC bands are contest free, so try those when the HAM bands are infested.

[Polar Bear]

Contests are the scourge of amateur radio.

Idiots that don't operate during the week, that wants to make something out of themselves by winning a contest.

They get on the air with their junk radios and crappy amplifiers and all they want to do is call cq and log call signs.

It doesn't prove anything, it just allows them to operate without actually having to learn how to operate - talk to people.

For me I would rather call cq, talk to one person for a half a hour, call cq work another person for a half an hour and then turn the radio off then download  JT4 and have my computer call cq and the internet log me for 100 contacts and all I did was pay the electric bill.

If I want to use the internet to make a contact, I own a cell phone.  @why bother getting a license and spending thousands of dollars on equipment?

[BoomboxDX]

Contests are the scourge of amateur radio.

Idiots that don't operate during the week, that wants to make something out of themselves by winning a contest.

They get on the air with their junk radios and crappy amplifiers and all they want to do is call cq and log call signs.

It doesn't prove anything, it just allows them to operate without actually having to learn how to operate - talk to people.

For me I would rather call cq, talk to one person for a half a hour, call cq work another person for a half an hour and then turn the radio off then download  JT4 and have my computer call cq and the internet log me for 100 contacts and all I did was pay the electric bill.

If I want to use the internet to make a contact, I own a cell phone.  @why bother getting a license and spending thousands of dollars on equipment?

I beg to differ.

Contests provide SWLs with a lot of stations to DX, and lots of different countries to hear. I haven't heard too much during the recent CW contests (over the past weekend) but in the past I used to hear most of the countries of South America during the big SSB contests, regions that were rare to hear the rest of the time. Conditions will be OK one night and you'll hear nothing -- same conditions another night and the bands will be packed during a contest.

As an operator I suppose it's a different issue.

[Polar Bear]

If trans equatorial skip is present, then the only thing you need is to be a relative distance away from the equator to listen to South America, but then again, someone needs to be on the air to be able to hear them.

A lot of people are afraid to call CQ and will only operate when someone calls cq for them or the hit it and quit it contact of a contest - where you do not get a quality conversation just a fake signal report and a exchange.

That was the one thing I liked the most about the vertical antenna I had on a 30 foot tower, you could listen equally well in all directions.

Having the option of more then one antenna also is also beneficial when it comes to operating dx.  Sometimes you can hear them better with the vertical and it was a much better antenna to use when it came time to ask - is this frequency in use?